


fighting from the other side

by mothraesthetic (burritosong)



Series: yakulev week 2015 [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bullying, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burritosong/pseuds/mothraesthetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yaku may not be overly thrilled to have Lev hanging around him, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stand by idly while others mock him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fighting from the other side

**Author's Note:**

> **content notes:** bullying, (a single very short) fight, mild blood/mentioned mild injuries, a mention of misgendering someone
> 
> title from "behind enemy lines" by demi lovato

"Here he is, just like clockwork," Kuroo sings out, just as another voice calls, "Yaku-san!"

Yaku groans and buries his head in his arms. "Why me?"

"I think it's cute," Kuroo teases.

Yaku hears the tell-tale sound of a bento box being set down on his desk followed by Lev's cheery, loud voice.

"How are you today?"

Yaku picks his head up to glare mildly at Lev. "You just saw me a few hours ago at practice," he points out.

"Well it could have changed between now and then, couldn't it?" Lev says. He opens his bento up and passes Yaku some pastries. "My mom made extra pirozhki so I brought you some."

"That is so sweet of her," Kuroo says, draping himself over Yaku in an attempt to steal one away.

Yaku bats his hand away. "Thanks, Lev."

It's become habit, Lev joining Yaku and Kuroo in their classroom at lunchtime. Yaku hates to admit it but he's gotten used to all the little snacks that Lev brings from home to share with him.

He tries not to think too hard about the fact that even though they always eat lunch together, Lev never brings anything for Kuroo.

"What's that?" he asks, catching sight of a book next to Lev's lunch.

Lev follows his gaze and shrugs. "Oh, some classmates saw me practicing the other day and they gave that to me today. They said they thought it would help me become a regular."

"That's nice," Yaku says, reaching for the book to take a look at it.

It's a slim, hardcover book with a picture of a smiling kid on the cover holding a volleyball. _Volleyball for Cool Kids_ , the cover proudly proclaimed in colorful, playful lettering.

Yaku's blood runs cold.

It's a children's book. A children's book about volleyball and Yaku's just glad that Lev is who too naive to recognize it for the insult it is.

"Uh Lev..." Kuroo starts before Yaku interrupts him.

"Who the hell gave this to you?" Yaku demands, dropping the book with a slam on his desk.

"Some people in class," Lev says, looking startled at Yaku's outburst, which had roused the attention of some nearby classmates.

"What people?" Yaku asks, seething with anger.

Out of the corner of his eye Yaku can see Kuroo shaking his head at Lev.

"I don't know," Lev says, clearly lying in an attempt to appease Kuroo.

It didn't matter. Lev had said they were in his class. Yaku can find them. He grabs the book, dodging Kuroo's attempt at stopping him, and makes his way to the first year classrooms with Kuroo and Lev hot on his trail.

"For someone with such short legs he's really fast, isn't he?"

Yaku storms into Lev's classroom, book raised overhead.

"Who did this?" He gives the book a shake. "Well? Whose book is this?"

He throws it down on the nearest desk.

"Whose. Book."

There is a moment of heavy silence as Lev's classmates regard Yaku with a mixture of fear and confusion.

"It was just a joke," one girl finally says quietly.

"Yeah, relax," says a boy sitting near her. He's leaning back in his seat, looking amused and haughty. "Haiba can take a joke, can't you Haiba?"

But Lev doesn't have a chance to answer because Yaku's already launched himself at the boy.

Yaku tackles the guy out of his seat and slams him on the ground. He manages to get a few hits in before two of the boy's friends grab him, but they each only get a single hit in before Kuroo and Lev drag Yaku away from them, still fighting.

Without anyone to hit, Yaku's anger and fight fly off. He sags into Lev and Kuroo's arms, panting and wondering why the other boys haven't come after him yet.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, and instinctively he lashes out, only to realize too late that it belongs to the teacher.

He takes the full brunt of the blame for the incident, insisting to the principal that Kuroo and Lev were only trying to stop him and that he'd been the only one fighting. Kuroo and Lev are able to get off with only a day's suspension from club activities. Yaku gets a week, with the warning that he should be grateful it wasn't more.

After a quick detour by the nurse's office, he spends the rest of the day in class, trying to ignore the throbbing of his head until the bell rings dismissing them.

"You want to come over?" Kuroo asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"Yeah," Yaku says, thrusting his notebook into his bag aggressively. There's something thrumming beneath his skin, but he can't identify it beyond Not Good.

"Give me a sec to talk to Kai," Kuroo says, clapping him on the shoulder.

Yaku shies away from the contact.

He's standing in the hall, waiting for Kuroo to finish because he isn't in the mood to talk and he just knows Kai will want to talk after seeing his face.

He reaches up to delicately touch the skin around his eye and immediately regrets it.

"That looks terrible!"

Yaku looks up and sees Lev, staring at him aghast. The first years had gotten in two hits—lucky ones, too, leaving him with a black eye and a split lip (although he thinks that one was meant for his nose). He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Lev fiddles with the button on his blazer, seeming unsure of what to say. "I was wondering if you wanted...to come over? To my house?"

Yaku wonders if he's afraid of some kind of retaliation from his classmates, and hates himself for losing his temper and complicating the situation for Lev.

He glances over at Kuroo and Kai, both of them still talking and not looking towards him at all.

"Yeah, sure," he says, pulling his phone out of his pocket to text Kuroo.

_Going to Lev's. Be over later._

He doesn't bother waiting for Kuroo's response before re-pocketing his phone.

"Lead the way."

The walk to Lev's is quiet, and Yaku's grateful for the silence. He knows he'll hear it from Kuroo later, for jeopardizing the club by not being smarter about how he handled the bullies, and from Kai too as soon as he manages to wheedle some time with Yaku.

When they get to Lev's house, he pulls a a lanyard out of his shirt with a single key on it and unlocks the door.

"No one's here, but Mom should be home soon. There's cookies, and we have other stuff if you don't want something sweet, and there's more pirozhki..." Lev trails off, as if the pirozhki were the cause for what had happened at school.

"Cookies would be nice," Yaku says, shucking his shoes.

Lev bounds off, presumably to the kitchen, and Yaku follows him albeit more slowly.

When he he turns the corner into the kitchen there are two plates set out on the table with two cookies on each plate. Lev's back is to Yaku, and he's digging through the fridge.

"Do you want tea? Or milk? Ooh—we have juice!"

Lev stands triumphantly with a carton of juice in his hand, and then freezes when he sees Yaku in the doorway.

"Do you need an icepack?"

It's been hours since the fight, and it's hours too late for an icepack to do much good, but Lev seems distressed over Yaku's injuries, so he shrugs and doesn't argue when Lev dumps a handful of ice in a bag and holds it up to his face.

Although, if Lev were trying to make some sort of offering for the trouble, the least he could do is wrap the damn thing in a towel.

Yaku reaches out and blindly gropes for a cookie and chomps on it to distract himself from the sharp, icy cold being held against his eye.

Lev finally moves the ice pack from Yaku's face, leaning in close to study his injuries.

"How does it feel?"

"Hurts," Yaku says honestly.

"And your..." Lev moves, as if to touch the cut on Yaku's lip, but stops at the last minute, hand hovering awkwardly in the space in front of Yaku's mouth before it drops to Lev's side.

"It's not as bad."

Lev frowns, looking away.

"Hey," Yaku reaches out to turn Lev's face back towards him. "You know this isn't your fault, right? This is not your fault. It's mine, for losing my temper, and theirs for being jackasses, but it's not your fault. You didn't do this to me, okay?"

"Okay," Lev says, but he still won't meet Yaku's eyes.

"Will your parents be mad?"

Yaku shrugs. "No," he says truthfully.

Lev's face brightens marginally, a ghost of his usual smile crossingg his face.

"Yaku-san do you want to see my room?"

They carry their schoolbags and cookies upstairs, and Lev smiles widely at Yaku as he ushers him into one of the rooms.

"This is my room. It's all mine; I don't have to share it with anyone else. I used to have to share a room with Anton, but now he and Dina are away in college so I finally get to have my own room."

He gives Yaku a grand tour, walking him to the dresser, desk, closet, and bed, before remembering that he hadn't gotten them drinks. He slips downstairs to get them both some tea, leaving Yaku alone.

He settles himself awkwardly on the desk chair, eying the room. He hadn't really intended on staying this long. At first he'd thought he'd just walk Lev home, maybe chat for a short while, and then head over to Kuroo's to crash for the night.

Glancing around, he catches sight of a bunch of pictures taped up on the wall, and he stands and crosses the room to get a closer look.

They're pictures of the volleyball team—candids that Lev had probably snapped on his phone and then printed out at home. Shots taken before and after practice, a few during (and Yaku would have to talk to Lev about snapping pictures when he should be paying attention), and some from the few times the whole team has hung out outside of school that Lev has been invited to. Above the pictures are seven pink glittery letters spelling out _FRIENDS_.

There are a lot of pictures of Inuoka and Shibayama, some of which look posed, but there are just as many, if not more, of him.

Yaku blushes. He's known, of course, about Lev's quite obvious crush on him, but it's one thing to know and another to be confronted with actual photographic evidence.

He frowns at one picture of him, talking around a mouth stuffed full of meat bun, hands a blur from gesticulating at someone.

"That one's my favorite," Lev says, and Yaku turns to find him standing in the door, two cups of tea in hand.

"That's a terrible picture of me," Yaku says, wrinkling his nose.

"I like it. It's special."

"Why?"

Lev grins at him. "It's a secret."

Yaku shrugs it off, figuring it isn't worth the effort to force it out of him, but makes a mental note to get Lev a better picture of himself.

"Where are your middle school friends?"

"Oh, let me show you!" Lev sets the mugs down on the desk before making his way to stand next to Yaku.

"Right here." He points to a picture that Yaku had somehow overlooked. It's the only proper picture hanging, and it shows Lev, a little bit younger than when Yaku met him, holding up the end of a quilt. Holding the rest of it is a group of elderly women.

"These are all old people."

"Yep! That's the quilting circle Mama signed me up for. I've known them sine I was seven. We're all very close. I don't get to go very much anymore though lately, because I'm so busy with volleyball."

"You quilt?" Yaku asks skeptically, having trouble imagining Lev sitting still long enough to thread a needle, never mind for the hours that must be involved in making a quilt.

"Mama said I had too much energy as a child, so she signed me up to learn how to do something that would make me sit still. That was the first quilt I ever made. It too me months to do."

Lev darts away, and Yaku tries to imagine what he must have been like to have a tiny, hyperactive Lev running around and is amazed by Lev's mother's ingenuity.

"See?"

Yaku turns to find Lev holding up the quilt that was on his bed.

"It's the same one."

Yaku glances back at the picture and confirms that yes, indeed, it is the same quilt.

"Wow, Lev." Yaku grabs the quilt to get a better a look. The stitches aren't the neatest Yaku's ever seen, but considering they were done by a child who probably would have rather have been running around outside, it's impressive. "This is amazing."

"It's just blocks. It's not that hard. You should see some of the ones the grannies do. They're the amazing ones."

Lev carefully folds the quilt up before returning it to his bed.

"Um..." Lev shifts nervously. "I promised Mom that I would finish my homework before dinner, but you can still stay if you want. We could do homework together?"

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Of course I do!"

Yaku smiles at Lev. "Then I'll stay."

Lev insists that Yaku use the desk, and settles himself on the bed. He leaves his backpack on the floor, leaning down to pull out a workbook.

Lev is surprisingly quiet when he studies, and every time Yaku glances over to make sure Lev hasn't fallen asleep he's pleasantly surprised to find Lev still hard at work.

And then something in Lev's backpack catches his eye.

He gets up and walks over to pull it out.

It's the book from lunch.

"Why do you still have this?"

"Huh?" Lev looks up from his work, confused.

"This book. Why do you still have this. You should have thrown it away."

"It was a gift," Lev points out, like it really is that simple.

"They're making fun of you!" Yaku snaps, getting angry all over again.

Lev looks at him, and there's a kind of sadness in his eyes that Yaku's never seen before. "I know, Yaku-san."

"So why do you let them?"

Lev shrugs. "I'm used to it. It was worse at my old school, and before I started growing. Mostly I'm left alone now because I'm tall."

Yaku thinks about all the extra practice Lev has put into the team, showing up early and leaving late, begging all of them to help him with this or that. Working harder than maybe any of them to learn the game and catch up to the rest of them just so he can play in a match.

He thinks about pink sparkly letters, hanging over pictures of people Lev has only know a few months.

He thinks about the little boy, proudly holding a quilt, whose only friends were a bunch of old ladies in the neighborhood quilting group.

He thinks about every single time he's been annoyed and frustrated with Lev and snapped at him, or complained about him to Kuroo and Kai and Kenma.

He thinks about fights with his own classmates, looking up online how to throw a punch so that he could get them to just shut up and leave him alone, if they weren't going to call him the right name.

His eyes burn and he blinks furiously to keep from crying.

"Just because you're used to it doesn't make it _right_. You don't deserve that."

Yaku can feel the tears spilling over now, and he hates himself for crying, but he can't stop. He's angry at everyone Lev's ever gone to school with. Angry at the teachers for letting it happen. Angry at himself for every mean thing he's ever said to or about Lev.

"None of it's true. We all know how hard you work, how much you've improved. You _deserve_ to be on this team, Lev."

Yaku scrubs at his face with his sleeve, wincing when he forgets about his injuries and rubs too hard.

"Yaku-san you're—"

" _Don't_ say it, Lev."

Yaku tries to get himself under control, tries to get himself to stop crying. But his feelings have gotten all jumbled up now, and he can't figure out whether he's crying because he's mad about how Lev's been treated, or because it's reminded him too much of what he's had to deal with.

Lev slides down from the bed to sit next to Yaku, placing a box of tissues in his lap.

"You don't deserve to be treated like that," Yaku insists, still crying.

He thinks, distantly, that this must be the strangest pep talk Lev's ever received.

"I know," Lev says softly.

Yaku manages finally, through sheer force of will, to stop crying. He blows his nose loudly, wincing when he accidentally aggravates his injuries.

"Is there somewhere I can wash my face?" he asks, not looking at Lev.

"Across the hall, second door on the right."

He gets up without a word.

Yaku washes his face off, and then stays in the bathroom for a while, trying to calm himself down. It's been years since he's cried that much. He's usually much better at controlling his emotions, but he thinks that maybe that's the problem. There's only so many ways you can relieve bottled up emotions and when things are kept tight under pressure long enough they're bound to blow up uncontrollably eventually.

When he returns to Lev's room, the book is nowhere to be seen.

Yaku's trying to come up with some sort of excuse to leave, so he can retreat to Kuroo's, when he catches sight of a pirozhki on the desk.

Well, he certainly isn't going to say no to any of Haiba-san's cooking.

Yaku sighs and sits down.

"Thanks for the pirozhki."

"Pirozhok," Lev says distractedly. "One is a pirozhok, two are pirozhki." He makes a noise of frustration before erasing something he'd just written down.

"Need help?" Yaku asks, grabbing the pirozhok and walking over to peer at Lev's work.

"You don't have to..." Lev says but he's frowning and staring down at his notes in confusion, and it's obvious he needs help.

Yaku nudges him over and sits on the bed next to him. He looks over what Lev's work, grateful it's math, which is something he's always been good at, and not something like literature.

"It's like this," he says, grabbing a piece of paper and jotting down the problem and it's solution.

Lev squints at what he's written. "Yaku-san...I can't read this." He collapses back onto the bed, breaking out into giggles. "You're handwriting is really bad!"

Yaku glares down at the paper, at his messy scrawl and at Lev's neat, bubbly handwriting that is so uniform it almost looks like it could be a computer font. His handwriting could be better, he supposes.

"Shut up," he says, lightly back handing Lev's leg to no avail, but Lev's giggles have lifted the last dredges of his bad mood, and soon both of them are laughing hard even though Yaku's not entirely sure why.

Downstairs a door slams, and Lev sits up, straight like a rod.

"Mom!"

He bolts off the bed, and already has one foot out the door when he stops and turns to Yaku. "Be right back!" he says, and then disappears before Yaku hears the loud thumping of someone running downstairs.

Lev returns quickly, excited and breathless. "She wants to know if you're staying for dinner."

Yaku hesitates, not wanting to inconvenience Haiba-san, but not really wanting to leave either.

Lev's face falls, and Yaku's heart twists.

"Only if it's not too much trouble," he relents.

"Mom! He's says he's staying for dinner!" Lev yells toward the kitchen. "We um...have to finish our homework though." Lev adds more quietly. "And she says we have to leave the door open."

Yaku's not totally sure what Lev means by that, but the way he says it leaves Yaku with a nagging suspicion that it has very little to do with finishing homework.

Lev finishes his homework, with Yaku walking him through the rest of his problems, and then they head downstairs.

Mrs. Haiba turns away from the stove as they enter the kitchen, and Yaku realizes immediately where Lev got his smile from.

"You must be Yaku," she says, and Yaku suddenly has the distinct impression that even though it's the first time he's ever visited, he's been a popular topic at the Haiba dinner table.

Dinner is a similar mix of the same Japanese and Russian foods Lev brings to school for lunch, and Yaku's grateful he only has to ask about the identity of a single dish. Conversation flows freely between Lev and his mom in a way it never does with Yaku and his family. The fact that Lev somehow forgets to mention the incident with his classmates while simultaneously recounting every single other minute detail of his day doesn't escape Yaku's notice. The meal passes quickly, with Lev yapping away and Yaku only having to make a few stray remarks here and there. He's grateful for it because he's too busy trying to process the entirety of the day to be a proper dinner guest.

He finds himself watching Lev more closely than he ever has before, really paying attention to Lev for the first time since he joined the club, and despite himself he finds himself being pulled out of the persisting melancholy that had followed him from school.

After dinner Lev tries to convince Yaku to stay to watch a movie, but he firmly reminds Lev that they have school the next day and that he needs to "head back," purposely keeping his wording vague so as to avoid lying.

Lev pouts, and he looks so endearing that Yaku can tell this is going to be a problem for him in the future, but he grudgingly accepts Yaku's reasoningg.

Haiba-san loads him up with leftovers, insisting he's too thin and that as a growing boy he needs to eat, and then the two of them walk him to the door.

"You can meet dad next time you come over," Lev says as Yaku's pulling on his shoes. "He's on a buisness trip right now, but he'll be home next week. You can come over then—right?"

"Yeah, sure. After practice," Yaku promises.

Lev smiles, and Yaku does his best to ignore the surge of warmth that shoots through his chest at the sight of him. He tugs Lev down to ruffle his hair, and Lev visibly preens at the attention.

Yaku thanks Haiba-san again for the food, and then forces himself to leave despite wanting nothing more than to linger in the warmth of the Haiba home.

Lev doesn't live too far from Kuroo, so Yaku decides to walk, enjoying the fresh air and feeling like he nees to think, although he spends most of the journey trying to shake the image of himself, mouth full of meat bun, out of his head. By the time he's made it to Kuroo's he's managed to utterly confuse himself, although over what he couldn't say.

Yaku knocks on the door, but when Kuroo fails to answer it in a timely manner, he digs through his bag to hunt for the key Kuroo had given him last year. He's not surprised when he finds no one inside; Kuroo's parents travel often, and Kuroo himself is probably over at Kenma's. He sends a quick text, _brought food. enough for 2._ , before heading for the shower.

By the time Kuroo and Kenma show up, Yaku's out of the shower and working on his homework at Kuroo's desk. When he hears the door, he quickly gathers up his things, shoving them in his school bag and throws himself on the bed, before realizingg he left his phone on the desk in his rush. He has only a moment to eye it balefully before Kuroo appears in the doorway carrying two plates, with Kenma trailing behind him.

"That's cheating!" Kuroo cries out.

Yaku shrugs. "You can't cheat if there aren't any rules. Whoever gets on the bed first gets to sleep in it, and I'm the one in the bed. Have fun sleeping on the futon."

Kuroo glares at him as he settles himself on the floor.

"Hey Kenma pass me my phone, will you?"

"Don't do it Kenma," Kuroo counters. "Make him get it himself."

Yaku's not about to surrender the bed, so he's left hoping Kenma will side with him.

Kenma eyes both of them appraisingly for a moment before grabbing Yaku's phone off the desk and walking it over to him.

"Traitor," Kuroo mutters, pouting at his plate.

Kenma shrugs. "He brought food."

The three of them sit in silence, Kuroo and Kenma eating while Yaku play s a game on his phone. After Kuroo and Kenma are done, Kuroo invites Kenma to stay for the night.

"We can make it a party," he says.

But Kenma just wrinkles his nose and waves them off before letting himself out.

As Kuroo busies himself getting ready for bed, Yaku finds his mind wandering back to Lev, and the collage of pictures on his wall. When Kuroo returns to the room Yaku absentmindedly rolls over and lifts the blanket. Kuroo slides in next to him, grinning smugly.

"Ohoho, what's this? I thought I was sleeping on the futon tonight?"

Yaku elbows him. "I'm feeling kind. Now shut up before I change my mind."

It seems like Kuroo's going to actually listen to him for once, Yaku already half-asleep before he speaks again.

"It took you a while to come over. Did you have to stop by your house for clothes or something?"

Yaku hesitates before answering, although he's unsure why.

"No. I have a spare uniform in my bag."

"Were you at Lev's the whole time?"

Again, Yaku finds himself waiting to answer.

"Yeah," he says shortly, hoping that will be the end of the conversation.

Kuroo seems to sense something in Yaku's hesitation, and his next question comes more cautiously.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"Anything. What happened today. You going to Lev's—"

Suddenly, Yaku feels inexplicably defensive.

"What does Lev have to do with anything?"

And he realizes, suddenly, why he's been so hesitant to talk to Kuroo tonight, what had been bothering him the whole way over. He also realizes that Kuroo—perceptive, cunning Kuroo—knows too. And Kuroo definitely won't let the subject just drop.

"Oh ho _ho_ ," Kuroo says gleefully, grabbing Yaku and pinning him down. " _Someone_ has a _crush_. When's the wedding? I call dibs on best man."

"There isn't going to be any wedding! I don't even like him."

"Yes you do," Kuroo says in a sing-song voice. "I know how you act when you're in like, and this is it. I should have realized it when you leaped to fight for his honor."

"I was not fighting for his honor," Yaku insists. "Those people were beingg jerks and they deserved more than what they got."

"Yeah," Kuroo says, voice serious again. He lets go of Yaku and lies back on the bed. "They did. And I know it's important to you. But you have to be smart about it. Even if they deserved it, you can't just go jumping into a fight like that. Especially not at school and in front of a teacher."

Yaku huffs. "Yeah. I know. I just...sort of lost it. I don't like bullies, and it isn't Lev's fault that he isn't good at volleyball yet. He just started playing this year. He's going to get better. He is better already."

Kuroo's quiet, watching Yaku patiently as he tries to form his mouth around his next words.

"He said...he said he didn't have any friends, that he was teased. I asked him who his middle school friends were and he told me about some old lady quilting circle. He doesn't deserve that. He's...frustrating and loud, but he's also nice, so fucking nice, and—"

Yaku groans and rolls over to bury his face in a pillow.

"I don't know what I'm trying to say," he admits.

"That you don't like to see the people you care about get hurt. That you care about Lev a lot. That you're mad at yourself for not being nicer to him."

" _Please_ stop reading my mind."

Kuroo hums. "It's okay, you know. If you like him. You are allowed to like him."

"What makes you think I like him?"

"I've kind of suspected for a while," Kuroo says. "Why do you think I keep asking you to help him with his receives?"

Yaku groans into his pillow again. "I'm fucked."

"You know he likes you too, right?"

Yaku lifts his head to glare at Kuroo. "Obviously."

"Just checking. You have a bad track record for this kind of thing."

"Whatever. Turn your damn lamp off. I'm going to sleep."

Kuroo turns to shut off the light, but stops and turns back to Yaku.

"Are you going to do anything about it?"

"Obviously not."

"I think you should. You'd be good for each other, you know. You can support him, and ground him. He's crazy about you, and you need that. Someone who can openly adore you for a bit. Remind you that you deserve that kind of happiness."

"Kuroo?"

"Yeah?"

"Go get the fucking futon."

Kuroo lets out a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But I'm not wrong."

"He's a _kid_. He has a lot of growing up to do—"

"Yeah? Well so do you, even if you want to act like you don't. You two could do your growing up together."

Kuroo shuts the light off and walks out of the room, leaving Yaku alone in the darkness. He stares up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of Kuroo retrieving his futon. A moment later, Kuroo appears in the doorway with an armful of futon, illuminated from behind by the hall light.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just want you to be happy. I didn't mean to push you."

Yaku doesn't say anything, but he climbs out of bed and helps Kuroo lay out the futon. When they're finished, he flops down on it.

"You're right though. About everything." He waves his arm towards the bed. "Take the bed. You deserve it for putting up with me."

"You take it," Kuroo insists. "You were there first, and you had a worse day."

"I'm not getting up."

"Yeah? Well neither am I." Kuroo shuts the door and lies down next to him. "So I guess we're both sleeping on the futon."

They lie there, side by side in the dark, and Yaku's grateful for it. All of it. For having somewhere safe for him to go when he needs to relax, for having a friend as good as Kuroo, for having Lev in his life—even if he's not sure exactly how he fits in it yet. He's grateful for it all.

All of it.

Except—

"We left all the fucking pillows on the bed."

"Yep."

"So...what? Are we just going to leave them up there, or...?"

"Just go with it, Yaku. Feel the moment."

"Fuck the moment, I'm getting a pillow."


End file.
